why does the sun shine when I have a thesis to write???

[yummybunnymummy]

Shouldn't be here as I should be writing my thesis. Dh has taken the dc (3yrs and 18mths)out for the day so I need to take the opportunity to work, but its sooooo sunny, and i've been at the computer for 6 hours and my bottom is numb...slow progress here.

Maybe you need a laptop for the garden.

I make tea when my bum goes numb... Jill

Same reason it always shone when we had exams at school - sod's law. Hope you made some progress.

yummybunnymummy, no matter how bad it feels, just remember....

you're STILL doing better than Brian May

Blimey - hope I don't take that long (although it really feels like it.....).

I took 7 years....

But you are done now then? That must be a relief! I'm hoping to submit late next year -that will be 5 yrs (with 2 counted out for maternity but really making the last 3 yrs part-time whcih is not an official option). Seems like a century away...

yes, done now hallelujah!

good luck with it acinonyx, just one little bite at a time

I had quite a good day really, especially as today we all went to the beach, hurrah for a day off!!!

I'm hoping to submit in the next couple of months, nearly 7 years! Might just beat Brian May, if he hadn't been famous would they have let him submit it?? I've had a couple of years off on maternity grounds and was off for 6 months with the last foot and mouth outbreak which meant I couldn't do any field work. It feels like its been going on for ever.

On a plus note, last week I sent off my first paper to a journal, feel very excited, although none of my mum friends around here, realise quite what it means to me etc..

keep going Acinonyx.. I'm just getting over a major bout of panic from last night, when the enormity of it all sunk in again, and I have awful nightmares about my viva.. but as my dh says, that I'm visualizing the viva means I think I'm going to finish it...

You're hoping to submit next year and you're writing up already? Gosh.

I wrote my thesis in the summer holidays after finishing my PGCE and starting my first teaching job. I finished my lab work the Friday before I started my PGCE (on the Monday). I submitted half an hour before my five year deadline . I like to live dangerously...

It isn;t shining because you have a thesis to write. It's shining because I have a lecture to write.

good luck with your article - I had my first one accepted recently and was vv happy.

congrats on your article, it feels such a big thing finally submitting one, I'm hoping to get the comments back before my thesis submission to hopefully give me a bit more confidence...fingers crossed..

...hope your lecture writing goes well..can I ask what its on??

okay well if we're talking articles, yesterday I finished the concluding para of one I've been revising since... May 2006! (Well there was the whole preg/new baby thing in between, what can I say!)

Hafta read it through one more time, can no longer remember if the last para bears any relation to the second para, then see if I can send it off by the end of the week.

D'you think the journal'll have it back after all this time???

good luck to all of us

maybe you lot can give me some guidance on what the norm is for submitting articles. I sent off what I hoped was teh final version and it was accepted - they said please send us the final version. so i emailed back saying you've already got it! I can't bear the thought of sending anyone a draft. Is my approach not the norm?

my lectures are on international law. first time I've given any - due to start in about 2 weeks time and I'm pretty terrified!

what is your PhD on? I haven't done a PhD nor do I have any intention of doing so - I;m too old! - I'm a kind of hybrid - work in practice but have kind of half-arsed academic leanings - doing the lecturing p-t and got the one article into a journal - need to work up a plan for a new article I guess

hi hatwoman

with journals, sadly, pretty much everything goes, and lots of people send in stuff missing references, with typos, etc. (I have done a bit of editing!) So they may well not have expected perfection the first time round

my phd was excessively frivolous, it was about the idea of play. So pretty much the opposite of you from the sounds

Oh no - I'm not writing up yet. I'm inputting data (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...) these days. Something of a low point.

WRT articles - most journals like you to follow their house style for refs, figs, captions etc - maybe that's what they are referring to.

phdlife - I (rather stupidly) agreed to write a book chapter 3 mo after dd was born. Fortunately I found a co-author and then turned over first authorship. Boy I thought that piece would never be finished.

Yummy - that is exciting. I published from my MPhil thesis (different topic) and was fantastically excited to get my first paper. I hope I can get some more next year - it's papers that people really care about, rather than the thesis which will just moulder in some basement.

Great to hear from some fellow thesis-slaves, Jill

interesting to hear about your book chapter, acinonyx - I am sorta keen to get back to some writing, but haven't quite figured out how yet. (ds is 16 weeks...!)

quite right about the thesis. nobody cares but you. good luck with your papers. I should proof-read mine tonight but I'm going to watch Sanjeev in India instead

Hi hatwomen, journals can be really strange, I'm sure the entire academic institution like to make things as difficult as possible, just to see if you can hack it. I've submitted a draft which is then sent to referees who will then send back comments, I then amend and the journal prints the final manuscript. If you can email or even better if you have the phone number, ring them up and sort it out.

It must be exciting to be preparing your lectures but equally daunting.

My Phd is looking at the palaeoecology of rich-fen plant communities in Anglesey. Are you ready I could start rambling on and on, as I have really enjoyed most of it. I've looked at all the pollen and macrofossils in the peat record to try and determine the impact of climate and man upon vegetation succession.
won't go any further - but I love it.

It is really wonderful to know that there are other PhD mums out there.

blimey - palaeoecology - I;ve just learnt a new word .

I think I should get back in contact with them about the article. I had already done it in house style and they didn;t send me any comments - just an acceptance. I haven;t heard from them since I replied saying they'd already got the final version.

I've got Sanjeev on record.

I've also done some editing - but textbooks rather than journals. Are you going to use your glorious PhD now you have it?

Hey yummy - my field is evolutionary anthropology so I've studied some paleoanthropology but not too much paleoecology - so you'll have to be gentle with me. What time period are you looking at and what overall trends have you observed? (I'm also in East Anglia as it happens). Fabulous that you're still so enthusiastic. I think my enthusiasm has troughed somewhat. I'm going to a conference next week and hope that will revive me - it usually does (incidentally PhD life - that's how I got asked to do that book chapter - from someone I met at a conference while pg).

Hat - maybe that is some kind of standard response. I would definitely call and check. I wonder if I will be able to lecture part-time - I'm a bit anxious that it will be FT or nothing. I don't really want to go FT before dd goes to school. Jill

acinonyx - I only have a term's work - 2 hours a week. it's for an American uni that sends graduate students to London for a term. it's kind of ideal for me as I can combine it with other things and if I hate it I can bin it and say at least I tried. I saw it advertised at jobs.ac.uk - you can sign up for a weekly email

Yummy - do you mean Angelsey as in Wales (slaps head for being dense - I was seduced by the word 'fen'....) Jill

oh, the "will you use it" question

well as you can guess if you're mad enough to enrol on a phd and stick with it for seven dark years, you must be mad keen, and I am. Or was. Not sure which, these days.

At the end of my dissertation I had a one-year contract and when that ended I had a hell dilemma: look for jobs and either live apart from dh or ask him to quit his job and come with me, or stay put and try to get pg.

dh had already quit one job to come to uk with me; we already tried living apart for a year and hated it; and I was 37. In some ways, the decision was a no-brainer, but it really hurt to have to choose in cold blood like that.

for the past 15 months I have pretty much felt that my career is over: I don't know how to write while being sole carer for ds, and I don't see how I'm going to get a job if I go 2 years without being employed or publishing. And tbh, I'm a bit resentful that this career asks you to keep writing even if you're not employed. I'm fed up with working for free (no scholarship, you see).

On the other hand, we had always planned for me to be main breadwinner, dh is miserable at his work and charming though I find my ds I miss abstract thought, so....

btw, my dh will twitch when he hears about your project acinonyx, he has a secret geology fetish.

hatwoman I have a mate who used to teach ancient roman history there!

I feel your pain. It really works best if you can move for a postdoc and we can't either as we really rely on dh's job which is not very movable - three's no way, now with a toddler, he would give up his job for my 2-yr contract. So I am depeding on getting a post within commuting distance, which is pretty limiting.

I'm seeing other people taking up to 2 yrs to get a reasonable post after completion of either a phd or postdoc (even when they can move 0 unless your in a technical field with higher demand) - but I think it gets trickier after that.

So I am also very concerned about my future after putting so much time and effort into this. Counting my MPhil, a year out to get funding, 3 yr PhD with 2 yrs out on maternity - this will also be 7 yrs of my time. That's a lot of committment to then not go any further..

gotta run - moms and toddlers at the door.....Jill

sorry I haven't been on here for ages. Yep. my sites are on Anglesey, late-Pleistocene, full Holocene records.

How was the conference?? Whenever I was doing field work I always hoped to find a bog body, a nice old one not a recent murder IFYKWIM. I used to have my coffee breaks sitting next to the outwash of the Lindow mans remaining brain mush.....they were the days!!

phew....am really struggling with bits of my literature review and having awful self-doubting moments. I feel really stupid.

hmm..probably need chocolate and a cup of tea!